So this is a part of the life on the farm, really. We went over to Jenna Woginrich’s Cold Antler Farm to help her dock her lamb’s tail and give him some shots, and then we had a great dinner out together, yakking about blogs, farms, animals, books, and life and then Jenna goes home and wakes up to a 2 a.m. racket and comes rushing out with her rifle and finds her laying chickens slaughtered and scattered all over her yard. This morning, a message on her website saying half of her chickens are gone, their heads missing. Raccoons.

This is a familiar part of life on the farm, this sickening feeling seeing things you are responsible for and live with killed suddenly, and then the process of sorting through it, because you know the foxes or raccoons or whatever will return. Traps? Secure fencing? Sitting out with a rifle? And all of the recommendations come pouring in – trap it, distract it, get lights, bomb proof coops, whistles, guard dogs, and usually the decision is the same – try a Have-A-Heart trap and if that doesn’t work, a trapper, because you will be under siege for a while, vigilant and edgy. It is a nice life, not a perfect life, and there are no simple or easy solutions. There is no such thing as a no-kill farm, and there is no perfectly safe life in paradise for the real animals in the real world. So there is the happy time cuddling a lamb and the other time picking up body parts of animals you were talking to the day before. Jenna can handle it, for sure. But still…

It is disturbing, yet also oddly routine. It happens, anyone with a farm and livestock has experienced it. This lesson, I learn again and again. It is not a crisis, not a drama. It is life itself. Dinner seems a long time off, but just yesterday.